SEVEN SOULS
Saturday, February 20, 2027
An evening of music with special guests and fellow Queens artists Parthenia Viol Consort. Parthenia will perform a program of music for viols, modern cello and koto and welcome special guest artists Duo YUMENO in this unique collaboration.
Parthenia Viol Consort and Duo YUMENO combine their artistry to blend east with west, old with new, in works for koto and cello, viol consort, and five viols and koto, featuring dances by John Dowland and world premiers by Japanese composer Yoko Sato and American composer Frances White.
Parthenia Viol Consort
The viola da gamba quartet PARTHENIA brings early music into the present with a ravishing sound and a remarkable sense of ensemble, animating both ancient and fresh-commissioned repertoire to critical acclaim. These “local early-music stars,” hailed by The New Yorker and music critics throughout the world, are “one of the brightest lights in New York’s early-music scene.”
Parthenia is Beverly Au, Lawrence Lipnik, Rosamund Morley and Lisa Terry. The ensemble appears regularly in concerts across America and produces its own series in New York City, collaborating with the world’s foremost early music specialists. The quartet has been featured in prestigious festivals and series as wide-ranging as Music Before 1800, Berkeley Early Music Festival, Early Music Now Concert Series, Arizona Early Music Society, Chamber Music Tulsa, National Gallery of Art, Harriman-Jewell Series, Maverick Concerts, Regensburg Tage Alter Musik, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Pierpont Morgan Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at the Venice Biennale.
Parthenia’s performances range from Venetian Renaissance masterpieces performed on rare reproductions of the earliest viols, to the complete viol fantasies of Henry Purcell, to a musical journey through the Habsburg empire. Parthenia also commissions and premieres new works annually, especially engaging women composers such as Calliope Tsoupaki, Frances White, Kristin Norderval, Tawnie Olson, and librettist Wendy Steiner.
Parthenia’s discography includes As it Fell on a Holie Eve – Music for an Elizabethan Christmas, Les Amours de Mai, The Flaming Fire – Mary Queen of Scots and Her World, A Reliquary for William Blake, Within the Labyrinth and Nothing Proved – New Works for Viols, Voice, and Electronics.
Parthenia is represented by Summerell Arts and records for MSR Classics.
Duo YUMENO
New York based koto / shamisen player and singer Yoko Reikano Kimura and cellist Hikaru Tamaki create a singular fusion sound, inspired by tradition but with a contemporary sensibility. Duo YUMENO’s repertoire includes a dynamic range of compositions – both traditional and contemporary – all of which explore the dialogue between classical Japanese and western music. In 2014, they were awarded the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program grant, and in 2015, received the Aoyama Baroque Saal Award. Their activities have been featured in the media, like the New York Times, Chamber Music Magazine, New York Classical Review, the Japan Times, Hōgaku Journal and NPR. A proponent of contemporary music, the duo has commissioned new works that blends the Eastern and Western traditions to composers including Toshi Ichiyanagi, Daron Hagen, Marty Regan, Yoko Sato, Elizabeth Brown, Takuma Itoh and Kaito Nakahori. Between 2010 and 2013, the duo commissioned Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon – a suite of pieces that explores the theme of nature depicted in traditional Japanese culture – to Marty Regan. In recognition of the project, they were awarded the Janet Latz Professional Fellowship in 2011. It was culminated in their debut CD, Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon that was released in 2015. In 2015 the duo embarked on a project to commission a suite of pieces based on The Tale of Heike – one of the masterpieces of Japanese literature – to the eminent American composer, Daron Hagen. The complete recording of the commissioned pieces, Heike Quinto was released by the Naxos label in 2024. Their collaboration with the Japanese Paper Film Project began in 2024, providing live music to accompany paper films – a novel form of silent shorts produced only in Japan during the 1930s. They have performed at the 44th Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Japanese Film Festival Australia and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Kimura and Tamaki first collaborated in 2008 and since then, have been performing regularly in the US and Japan. They have been actively presenting their cross-cultural programs throughout the US and have performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the John F Kennedy Center, the United Nations, New England Conservatory, Japan Society, Japanese Ambassador’s Residence in New York as well as Washington DC, Renaissance Society of Chicago, Clark Art Institute and Rubin Museum of Art. In 2016, they were invited by Chamber Music America to give a feature performance at its national conference concert. In 2017, the duo was featured at the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC. The duo also performed its 10th anniversary recital to a sold-out audience at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2019. In order to promote intercultural music to the younger generation, the duo was invited to present residency programs at Princeton University, UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Hawaii, the Hartt School and Longy School of music, giving recitals and unique opportunities for young composers to create new works for koto, shamisen and cello.
Since 2010, they have held a successful annual tour to Japan that has extended to such cities as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Nara. Some of the notable venues are the Tokyo National Museum, the Myōnichi-kan Auditorium (Tokyo), the Aoyama Music Memorial Hall (Kyoto) as well as Kasuga Grand Shrine, Ryōan-ji and Yakushi-ji Temples and other UNESCO World Heritage sites. In 2024, the duo participated in the Yoshino Arts Festival, which celebrated Mt. Yoshino’s twentieth anniversary of the designation of UNESCO World Heritage Site. As a cultural ambassador of Japanese music, the duo was invited to Turkey in 2013, performing at the former Consulate General of Japan in Istanbul and at Namik Kemal University in Tekirdag. In 2014, they visited Trinidad and were featured at the opening concert of “Japan – CARICOM (14 Caribbean countries) Friendship Year 2014” – an event promoted by the Japan Foundation, NY and co-organized by the Embassy of Japan in Trinidad and Tobago. In 2015, the duo was invited to perform at Clare Hall, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. In 2018, they performed at Los Andes University in Bogota, Colombia in an event to celebrate the 110th anniversary of Japan-Colombia diplomatic relations. The duo performed for the ceremony of the new appointment of the Honorary Consulate General of Japan in Puerto Rico in 2023.